Pages

Wednesday, 12 February 2014

India Only Next to USA in Terms of Number of Crop Pests and Pathogens

Plant Scientists from UK have studied the economic and physical determinants of the global distribution of crop pests and pathogens. The full report has been published online in New Phytologist on Tuesday (11th February 2014) As a part of their study they observed the pest and pathogen numbers per country, with the largest numbers reported by the USA (1200), India (1063), China (1012), France (999) and Japan (973).

Top 5 countries in terms of number of pest and
pathogen (Bebber, et.al., 2014)

S.No

Country

Number of Pests and Pathogens

1

USA

1200

2

India

1063

3

China

1012

4

France

999

5

Japan

973

They also reported the most widespread
pests, in terms of number of countries in which they are found. Top ten most
widespread pests are listed below.

They summarised their analysis that reported pest numbers increased with per capita gross domestic product (GDP), research expenditure and research capacity, and the influence of economics was greater in micro-organisms than in arthropods. Total crop production and crop diversity were the strongest physical predictors of pest numbers per country, but trade and tourism were insignificant once other factors were controlled. Islands reported more pests than mainland countries, but no latitudinal gradient in species richness was evident.